Fazail Lutfi
Experiments and Observations on different Types of Air | 2008 | 20:00mins | A / V collaborative performance and installation | Canada
Fazail Lutfi spends much of his creative energy working in lens -based art. Fazail uses the medium of video and sculptural elements to create gallery installations. Previous works include films for the CBC, various international festivals and Canadian galleries. Currently his work revolves around issues of place, memory, and imagination.
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Experiments and Observations on different Types of Air, is an audio/video collaboration comprised of video of a re-creation of an inaccurate, though visually striking, 18th century experiment devised to help understand the underlying cause of the Aurora Borealis with sound elements comprised of field recordings and electronic stimulation of different “airs”. The experiment consists of a tight beam of sunlight which passes through a prism, then vapor cloud, which is in turn agitated by the motion of air being pushed at rhythmic intervals by speakers placed on each side of the cloud. This footage is layered with that of a water droplet, a natural lens and prism, being pushed by a beam of highly compressed air creating striking visual explorations of motion, the very basis of sound. During live performance the composite footage is passed through an old CRT (cathode ray tube) monitor, which is then distorted and played with by the electromagnetic pull of powerful hand held magnets being passed around the body of the monitor. A pull which passes invisibly through the air not unlike sound. Field recordings and samples of different “airs” such as the city air at night, day and early morning, pompous self gratifying conversation, radios between stations and a chorus of balloons being filled and emptied are manipulated in time via the chance operation of scanning the sample, releasing small bursts of the material from its digital coil and transforming it into “air”, as one would scan between stations of radio air, within the underlying 120 bpm structure. The very act of sound propagation is the disturbance of molecules and transfer of energy through that which we know as “air”. Sara Gold will be performing the audio element and Fazail Lutfi, the visual.
Featured in: Immortal Noise
